ECO/Green/Recycled GOLD!
We refiners have it. We have it by the gram, pennyweight, ounce and
kilo. Some of us can track it separately from new minted gold-some
not. The point is that right now given the number of jewelers cashing
(well, a check anyway) in old gold, much kept or unsold from $400 or
$500 gold days-there is all the ‘green’ gold the earth conscious
jeweler could want. Come and get it. I say this because now this
situation will one day change.
It should be no secret that when refining is good, refiners use the
gold they refined and paid customers for in their products. The
opposite has happened in the past, orders were good, refining scarce
and we refiners hit the open market and got “new” gold from who knows
where. This might be newly mined gold in large part. I have seen this
swing back and forth many times. Right now it’s been a long time
since we at PMWest hit the open market for “new” gold to make solder
or wire.
Eco aware manufactures, refiners and government officials are meeting
and talking and will be deciding upon standards disclosures and the
like-as relates to “eco” gold. I have no idea how all that will work
out, or what intelligent fair people will build a consensus on. I do
know a few salient facts we should all remember.- Once the gold is
pure it is difficult or impossible to reliably trace its origins by
anything short of a CSI like trail of evidence and a paper trail on
(I hope) recycled paper. Particularly after we make it into useable
solder, wire, whatever. After we add alloys, forget metallurgical
tracing!
We refiners can offer our notes on letterheads, our policies and our
promises. Some of us can offer you your own molecules back. But I
suspect we can not really prove the origin of reclaimed gold. In the
end the customer will have to rely on trust with the refiner. Trust
that when we say the casting gold was made from refined (fill in
your favorite phrase from the subject line above) it really is. The
consumer will have to trust the retailer.
At the risk of “selling” here on Orchid- I am reluctant to cross
that borderline but I would hate to see the reclaimed gold go to
companies less caring about earth kind issues.
Precious Metals West has this gold. We do track it separately. There
is no surcharge here for it in grain or pure form, just our long
standing pricing system. There is no surcharge for solder or wire
made with this reclaimed pure gold. Heck, it is the only kind we
have-For now. As long as refining keeps pouring in-as long as prices
are so darn high.
But how many of us try to source along these lines. After taking the
time to learn about conflict diamonds, tanzanite, and more- Will we
all really find the time to source recycled gold? As odd as it
sounds, the global recycled percentage is at least 40% if you can
trust the public summaries of statistics. So you choose-40% recycled
or 100%.
Daniel Ballard
www.pmwest.us